Maxime de la Rocheterie on Marie-Antoinette

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

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Sunday, October 11, 2015

The Prince of Wales became affectionate towards the Countess of Kent.
It is said that even the Prince had fallen for her charm earlier in his
lifetime, but that his parents did not approve. Nevertheless, it seems
that their marriage was one of love. Although his parents did not
approve of the match (they most likely wanted him to marry a foreign
Princess to forge some sort of alliance between England and another
European country). Although Joan had been a favored ward of the King and Queen, the Countess’s living ex-husband was an issue when it came to
inheritance. The secret marriage the Prince of Wales and Countess of
Kent are said to have contracted in 1360 would have been invalid anyway
because of the consanguinity prohibition (they were first cousins, once
removed). At the King’s request, the Pope granted a dispensation
allowing the two to be legally married. The official ceremony occurred
on 10 October 1361, at Windsor Castle with the King and Queen in
attendance. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided.

The couple had two children, Edward of Angoulême and Richard of
Bordeaux (later King Richard II). The eldest died around age 6 while the
couple was ruling in Bordeaux as Prince and Princess of Aquitaine. The
couple returned to England in 1371 where the plague had become an issue.
Edward was a Prince who enjoyed fighting and was usually pre-occupied
with some campaign. In 1371, he attempted one final campaign to regain
his father’s French possessions. On 7 June 1376, he died at Westminster,
a week before his forty-six birthday. Joan’s son by the Prince, young
Richard, became heir to his grandfather Edward III. Edward died circa a
year after his son and Richard was crowned King at the age of ten. (Read more.)

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